Chapter 261: The... Pet in the North Wing?
The whole library shook non-stop amidst the shouts and occasional flashes of light. After some sort of large collision, dust and debris poured down from the crevices of the ceiling directly onto Reno's face. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried his best to suppress his urge to sneeze.
If he were to make any careless sound, the attacks from the south wing and the north wing would instantly obliterate all his lives. This was because Reno was lying directly behind the corpse from the north wing. In other words, he was currently in the middle of the central hall, in a wide-open space, in a vulnerable place that was exposed to everyone. He pressed his back tightly against Siri's work desk. Within the pitch-black library, Siri's face was the only thing that was illuminated by a white light. As she moved, the light on her face from the monitor screen shifted. One could even vaguely see a few lines of words from the reflection on her spectacle lens.
She lowered her eyes and threw a glance at Reno through her spectacles. Then, she stared back at her screen once more without saying a word. As Reno's hiding spot was on the other side of Siri's computer screen, there was a strong contrast between the bright light and his dark hiding spot, as a result, it was the darkest spot in the whole library. Furthermore, he was shielded by the mutilated corpse in front of him. This was also the reason why no one discovered that there was someone hiding right under their noses even after such a long time.
The dead man's feather duster was lying some distance away from him. Reno's eyes teared as he waited for his sneeze to go away. After that, he curled his body slightly and called softly, "Siri!"
The typing sound from Siri's keyboard stopped suddenly. "Yes?" she answered.
Siri did not make any attempts to hide her actions. Reno's heart suddenly tightened. Luckily, everything around him was too chaotic. Her voice was quickly drowned by all sorts of fighting noises around them. Reno steadied himself as Lin Sanjiu's instructions surfaced in his mind.
"Could you answer me more quietly," he whispered, "I... I have many questions for you."
"What are your questions?" As expected, Siri acquiesced to his request and answered quietly. Reno instantly let out a sigh of relief. He went through the questions in his mind once, and picked one of them, "Do you know the location of the target books that are already found?"
Before Siri could reply, Reno quickly pulled the communicator from his ears and placed it near her.
—
Half an hour before, Lin Sanjiu didn't anticipate that the opportunity to execute their recently created plan would present itself so quickly. The fluorescent lights had been destroyed with a series of explosion. The moment the library suddenly fell into darkness, Lin Sanjiu immediately snapped out of her shock. She repressed her excitement and nudged the siblings without any warning, urging them softly, "Now!"
The siblings panicked a little, "Huh? Now?"
Lin Sanjiu listened carefully to the voice from the west wing, "Hey, youngster from the east wing!" She quickly turned to the kids and whispered urgently, "Yes. Quick, wear your communicators. We will act according to plan!"
Once they carried out their plans, there was no turning back. However, the teenagers' naive courage overcame any doubts they had about the plan. After the siblings wore their communicators excitedly, Rena suddenly realized something.
"You... don't have a communicator. How are you going to communicate with us?" Rena asked, feeling a little at wit's end.
As the siblings usually kept to themselves, they only brought equipment and items sufficient for two people from Red Nautilus. Lin Sanjiu touched her ears subconsciously and comforted them, "Don't worry. This time, we each have our own tasks… It isn't like we won't be seeing each other again. Since we have a meeting spot, let's meet there later."
The siblings nodded and they split up in the dark. While the other teams argued in the darkness, Reno ran toward Siri's work desk in the center of the hall keeping very close to the walls. Meanwhile, Rena turned around and ran toward the entrance to the north wing in the central hall, which was the staircase to the second floor of the north wing.
Due to some strange consideration, it was impossible to enter the first floor of each library wing from the central hall. The four wings of the library were connected to the central hall only by the staircases leading to their second floors.
Rena wasn't sure if the people from the west wing, opposite to them, could see her. In addition, she didn't know where the members of the north wing team were now. Rena hesitated at the bottom of the staircase and decided to observe the situation first.
Rena, who was not even 160 cm, squeezed herself into a corner, almost touching the ground, and hid behind the handrails of the staircase. It was difficult to spot her… but that was only to the naked eyes.
If someone had some sort of surveillance or heat scanning device, they would find her hiding behind the handrails very easily. They would spot her even if she was hiding underground. Unfortunately, one of the person from the north wing who planned to ambush them had such a book.
When the few people leaped down from the second floor with a "thud" right in front of Rena, she felt as if her heart had almost flown from her chest. She felt her blood freeze and couldn't move.
"Hurry! Don't miss any spot!" As the man with the top hat dished out an order not far from her, the man standing in front of her took a step forward. Then, he actually ran off toward the book section, following another of this teammate who had jumped off from the second floor with him.
Rena stood in a daze at the same spot for quite some time before she reacted.
"It isn't possible that he let me off on purpose," she thought blankly to herself.
Rena finally realized what had happened only after the black figures disappeared behind the bookshelves. She didn't dare to waste another second staying in the same spot. She couldn't care less whether the people from the west wing could see her, so she turned and ran up the stairs as fast as she could.
When a person used a wide-area surveillance device, they would naturally only look at the surroundings around them. However, Rena was in very close proximity to the man just now. If she peeked out from her hiding space, her nose would have touched his trousers. That is to say, she had been standing within the radius he recognized as his "personal" space!
Once they left, the chance of her being spotted would increase exponentially. If someone were to cast a sweeping glance at the staircase, she would have no chance of survival. She finally rushed to the second floor of the north wing. When she saw the tall bookshelves, Rena immediately let out a sigh of relief and rushed over.
All the people from the north wing had left, so the north wing should be safe. From the looks of things, her mission seemed to be the easiest—
Before that thought faded from her mind, Rena suddenly sensed something amiss. She looked up and saw a palm-sized face which looked as if it belonged to a human and also a snake. That thing had its eyes fixated on her.