Chapter 586: Don't Forget Me
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
It was quiet after lunch time. The wind stopped blowing and the smell of sunshine was intoxicating.
There weren't any customers in the store, and most of the pets and elfins were still resting and digesting their food.
Lu Yiyun held a pen in her hand, as she mentally struggled.
She just started posting a comic series on Weibo about a pet shop. Zhang Zian was certainly the basis of the main character. For now on though, the plot would be about the daily lives of the animals in the pet shop.
After thinking for a while, she felt that a lot of potential content could be made based on the store. She'd been listening to Zhang Zian as he explained all of his of pet knowledge to customers, and she thought it could be used in her comics.
Except that she had to decide if she should go for BL, Boy's Love?
BL or couples, these were the two demons fighting in her heart.
This wasn't only a matter of the story, but also to the style of her comic.
As a female otaku obsessed with the ACG world, Lu Yiyun had been inevitably exposed to BL and ACGs. Sometimes she had assignments where she had to draw pictures for BL novels. This came to her naturally, as she was planning the plot of her comic.
A regular relationship was not an option. No way, having a boring relationship was worse than not having a relationship at all.
She gave some further thought. If it were BL, would Zhang Zian be a top or a bottom?
Slowly, she forgot the fact that Zhang Zian was only the basis of the character. She was thinking of him as Zhang Zian himself.
As Lu Yiyun was deciding, Zhang Zian meanwhile had no idea about the crisis and was awaiting his bottom.
He was watching Pi type upstairs, and threw the take-out box aside after he finished eating. He hadn't moved in one hour, and neither had Pi.
"Pi, it's time for a break," he reminded, looking at his watch.
"Eek."
Pi nodded halfheartedly, without stopping his typing.
It typed then deleted, After I finish this paragraph.
It was like this all the time, and would only stop after finishing a story. Zhang Zian didn't get it. According to Pi, it was afraid of interrupting its train of thought, since it was hard to get back on track afterwards.
Pi didn't know that Zhang Zian played the game skillfully, and reminded it to take a break 5 to 10 minutes ahead of each time.
"Eek."
Pi finally stopped and stretched out. Zhang Zian helped it jump off the desk chair, then took it to lie down in its hammock chair.
"Pi, take a good rest. You'd better close your eyes, and stop thinking about the story's plot."
Zhang Zian grabbed the empty take-out box and stood up to throw it out in the kitchen. Pi grabbed at his clothes as he took a step away.
"Eek."
"What's the matter, Pi?" He stopped and asked.
Pi stayed still and pointed at the desk.
It just left the computer, so it shouldn't need it again. So...
"You want to hold your book?" Zhang Zian guessed.
Pi shook its head.
There was only one possibility left. He took up Pi's glasses and handed them over. It wasn't wearing glasses while writing, which was out of the ordinary. The glasses had stayed on top of the book.
Pi took the glasses, then waved at him, asking for him to come closer.
Zhang Zian had no idea what it was up to, but he still bent down, thinking that it might want to show him something.
As he got closer, Pi took the glasses and put it on his nose.
"Eek!"
It clapped its hands, and laughed.
Zhang Zian had never worn glasses before, not even sunglasses. He felt a bit nervous as Pi pushed the glasses towards him with its furry hands. He wasn't afraid of Pi, but he'd heard that myopic glasses or reading glasses could make people with normal eyesight feel dizzy.
It turned out that he was just overthinking. As he'd guessed before, the glasses had no prescription. The lenses were clear, and there didn't seem to be any special about it. The world looked the same as before, no gods or ghosts, which made him slightly disappointed.
He was worried that the glasses might not hold and would fall off any moment. He put his palm under his chin to catch them when they fell. But after a while, the glasses were still firmly on his nose.
"What, do I look funny in glasses?"
After seeing Pi laughing happily, he thought that it was because he looked funny wearing them.
"Eek."
Pi shook its head. Its laughter didn't stop.
He walked into the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. He looked more mature and educated.
Its construction was very simple. It was short, with a thin metal rod connecting the two oval lenses. The material of the metal was unknown. It was bronze and looked old, with antique designs on it. The lenses were thin, attached to two pieces of metal that supported the nose, and it was the same color as the rod.
The glasses felt light, as if it had no weight.
Some clip-on glasses were attached to a chain or strap to fix it on clothes, to prevent them from slipping, but this one wasn't.
Zhang Zian tried to lower and shake his head. These glasses shouldn't have been able to stay on his nose like this. But strangely, they didn't slip off at all.
He walked out the bathroom and laughed. "These glasses are interesting." As he spoke, he started to take them off and give them back to Pi.
"Eek."
Pi quickly waved its hands to stop him, then pointed at the desk.
Without a doubt, this time it had to mean the book.
Zhang Zian picked up the book and gave it to Pi.
Pi didn't take it, but pointed at Zhang Zian's eyes, then at the book.
"You...want me to read it?" His heart warmed as he spoke.
Pi nodded.
Zhang Zian wasn't as curious about the untitled book as he was before. He'd read it once, but it was all blank. Galaxy said there were many interesting stories in the book, but Famous could only see blurry words.
He followed Pi's suggestion and opened up the book. He turned to a random page and lowered his head to read.
What was going on?
With only one glance, his palms and back immediately got sweaty. The book was no longer blank, but filled with countless English characters, so many that it made him dizzy.
He turned to the next page, and it was the same. Countless letters filled the page.
The next page, then the next. They were all like that.
Each page of the book was full of English letters, without punctuation, empty lines, or paragraphs. There wasn't even a single space.
Was this a book?
If this was a book, how was he supposed to read it?
It would be fine it that was the only issue. Old Chinese literature had no punctuation either, and the reader had to interpret the punctuation themselves. The problem was these letters were meaningless! He knew every single one of them, but they didn't make words when they were connected. He searched the whole page, but couldn't find a single word that he knew, except the letter "a", which was also a word on its own.
Did he not know enough words?
Or was this not English at all?
Zhang Zian flipped through one page after another, until his eyes started hurting. He stopped at a random page, and finally found an English word that he knew: shop.
There were countless "z'" before "shop", followed by "shopa", then "shopaa", "shopaaa" and "shopaaaa". For as long as he kept flipping, "shop" was followed by countless "a".
He closed his eyes and the book to give his eyes a break. After a few moments, he opened up the book again.
This time, he found another word that he knew: play.
"Play" was preceded by countless "z", followed by "playa", "playaa", "playaaa", and "playaaaa". The pages after were filled by numerous "a".
He closed the book then opened it again.
Sometimes, after repeating the cycle a few times, the same letter would appear, such as "c", "f", or "t".
What did it feel like to read a page filled with the same letter over and over again? Now he knew.
At the same time, he noticed something else. He could turn to a random page of the book, but as long as he continued flipping the page, the pages on both sides neither increased or decreased, as if he could keep turning the page until the end of time.
He tried to skip pages, and turned two, three, or four pages at a time, but no matter how he turned the pages, new pages appeared after, and old pages disappeared from before. The balance was precisely maintained. The thickness on both sides stayed the same as the way book was initially opened, unless you closed the book and opened it again.
This was an infinite book.
This was not a book that a human could read.
He could feel the blood flow leaving his head. His face must be as pale as a ghost right now. He closed the book and shut his eyes. He couldn't read any longer. After reading for a short while, his head felt like it was going to explode and his eyes were aching. The lunch he ate not long ago was churning in his stomach, and he felt like he was about to throw up.
"Eek?"
Pi sounded panicked. One of its furry little hands grabbed his own hand and started shaking it.
The nausea was slowly going away. Zhang Zian opened his eyes, a cold sweat covering his forehead.
Pi stared at him nervously, and gestured to ask him how he was doing.
"Pi, I'm fine." He smiled reluctantly, took off the glasses, and handed it back to Pi along with the untitled book. "This is such a magical book. Thanks for letting me see it. My curiosity is satisfied."
Again, Pi didn't take them. It stretched its hand, and pushed the book and glasses back to him, then pointed at his chest.
"What's that?"
This time, Zhang Zian could no longer guess what it was trying to say. Was Pi asking him to keep reading? His life would be in danger if he kept on reading.
Pi seemed to have had enough rest. It raised its arms to let Zhang Zian put it to the chair. Then it typed in a Word file, If I'm not around anymore, you can keep the book and glasses.
He was astonished as he read these words. His heart ached with sadness.
Pi and its book were from two separate faiths. Even if Pi disappeared, the nameless book would still exist. It might have a premonition that its days were numbered, and the Strength of Faith was not strong enough to maintain its existence. That's why it wanted to leave its most cherished possession to him.
This was a book about life, the universe, and everything else. He used to be incredibly curious about the book and wanted to read it so badly. But after reading it today, he wished that he hadn't.
"Pi, what nonsense are you talking?" He tried to hold back the sadness in his heart, and smiled. "How can you not be around anymore? Don't you want to go out and travel? Don't forget that there are 60 readers online, waiting to read your book and follow your story. Plus me and the other elfins. We all want to know what happens to us in your story."
He tried to change the subject by playing dumb.
Pi looked at him emotionally, then typed: If I'm not around anymore, help me write the story. I don't want to disappoint the readers.
Zhang Zian's smile slowly froze. He could tell that Pi was serious.
"No." He slowly shook his head and declined. "This is your story, and you have to finish it. I've never been good at Chinese ever since I was young, and my writing was often read in front of the class as bad examples, not to mention me trying to write novels. If I'm the one writing the novel, the readers will be more disappointed."
He could not allow Pi to give up hope and lose its morale, especially as it was developing ideas of passing on its possessions. In movies, a lot of the die-hard communist believers were only willing to die after making the last payment of their communist party membership fee...
Pi pointed at the nameless book and the glasses, then typed, It's easy to write novels. If you don't know something, just look it up from the book."
Zhang Zian shook his hands. "No way. I was about to talk about this. I read it for a while with the glasses, and it almost made me vomit. 99.99% of the content in the book is just meaningless clutters of letters. The time I spend finding out what one plus one is with the book is enough to get myself a PhD in mathematics."
He thought earlier that it was easy for Pi to write a novel, and all it needed to do was to look in the book for anything it didn't know about. Now he realized that he was very wrong. It was harder to get information from that book than it was retrieving a needle from the ocean.
As for the book, even if his life was in danger, even if Pi told him there were pictures of naked women in it, he would not take a second look into it.
"Pi, stop your wild thoughts." He encouraged it and diverted the subject. "So, did you finish your new chapter? Upload it if you did. I'm sure the three readers would be thrilled to see their names in the novel."
After seeing that he wouldn't accept the book and clip-on glasses, Pi nodded in disappointment, and opened the author's page on the website, ready to upload new chapters.
A new message popped up. What was that?
Zhang Zian bent down closer to the screen, to read it with Pi.
"Hello, this is to inform you that your story Pet King will be promoted on Sunday afternoon into the popular urban category. Please keep updating. Pi, your novel is getting promoted by the website!" He excitedly pressed on Pi's shoulder.
"Eek."
Pi smiled. It was happy too, but not as happy as Zhang Zian. It had been disappointed too many times for it to hope again.
"I think we should start working on it." Zhang Zian rubbed his hands together, eagerly thinking about how he could turn things around for Pi through this rare opportunity.
His cell phone rang then. It was a text from Sun Xiaomeng, asking him to drop by her clinic to discuss something.
"Pi, I have to head out for some business. I'll be back soon. Go on with your next chapter," he said in a hurry.
Pi grabbed him and typed, If I don't exist anymore, please don't forget me.
Zhang Zian stood still for some time, then nodded in silence.