Beginning to Write

After a great deal of fussing around, Chen Miemie put away the quill and returned to Yi Zhu and the others.

“Next, Yi Zhu should do as I asked and take me to Fairy Tale Road to look for the shop, right?” Chen Miemie recalled what had happened when he first entered the city.

As Chen Miemie walked along, a passerby lightly bumped into him, changing his direction. When he looked up again, he saw a bookstore ahead.

“A bookstore?” Chen Miemie walked over first. “Isn’t this the bookstore where Mr. Kong gave me a book back then?”

Chen Miemie leaned toward the bookstall. Mr. Kong couldn’t see him; he merely smiled at the pedestrians passing by, apparently searching for potential customers whose eyes might meet his.

Knowing that Mr. Kong would never pay him any attention, Chen Miemie shifted his focus to the books on the stall.

“Talk about coincidence. With so many books here, how did I happen to choose that one back then? Let me see… Where’s my precious Guide to the Five-Colored Mailbox?”

The stall was piled high with books. Even with Chen Miemie’s excellent eyesight, finding one particular title among the densely packed spines was no easy task.

After searching for quite some time, he finally found the Guide to the Five-Colored Mailbox in an inconspicuous spot.

It really was inconspicuous. Buried among the stacks, its color did not stand out at all. Even when deliberately looking for it, one could almost miss it.

“That’s not right. How could anyone possibly find this?” Chen Miemie grew anxious. This book was crucial to using the Five-Colored Mailbox later on, as well as to communicating with his fellow book enthusiasts. He absolutely couldn’t afford to miss it.

By then, Chen Miemie had just begun talking with Mr. Kong.

“Got it!”

An idea struck Chen Miemie. He took out the quill, went around to the back of the stall, and used the shaft to laboriously push against the bottom of the Guide to the Five-Colored Mailbox.

The quill was extremely light and couldn’t bear much force. Even the end of its feather shaft was quite fragile.

Chen Miemie was very careful. He was literally “editing the story” with the pen.

“It moved a little. That works. Just a bit more… Yes, that’s it.”

Finally, one second before Chen Miemie began choosing a book, the Guide to the Five-Colored Mailbox was pushed up by a considerable amount.

Chen Miemie looked toward the stall at just the right moment.

In the perfectly aligned wall of books, one volume protruded a few centimeters farther than the others, making it noticeably more eye-catching. He picked up the book that seemed destined for him.

“Boss, I’ll take this one.”

Mr. Kong nodded with a smile. “Good choice. It’s a practical guide to using certain equipment, a type of book that’s rarely seen nowadays. The Guide to the Five-Colored Mailbox. Take good care of it.”

Watching Chen Miemie leave with the Guide to the Five-Colored Mailbox, Chen Miemie let out a sigh of relief.

“That was close. I almost missed it. Hmm? They’re getting on a bus? Wait for me!”

On the bus bound for Fairy Tale Road, Chen Miemie chatted with Yi Zhu and Yi Xian. Yi Xian told her about the specific circumstances of being “unable to see.”

As the vehicle continued on, it passed through several stops and arrived at the Evergreen Academy stop.

“I heard that from the buses around here, you can see the giant banyan tree inside the school?” Chen Miemie suddenly remembered hearing that.

After completing the commission and trade with Mr. Kong, he had obtained ownership of the giant banyan tree’s Banyan Heart after its death. He already regarded the tree as his own sacred and inviolable private property.

Chen Miemie had a strong sense of ownership. When the bus reached the stop, he hurried to the door, hoping to get a look at his banyan tree.

Unexpectedly, no one got off at this stop.

The bus was shaped like a matchbox made from a book, with no windows through which passengers could admire the scenery. If nobody got off, the doors wouldn’t open; and if the doors didn’t open, he couldn’t see outside.

Chen Miemie squeezed toward the gap between the doors and craned his head, trying to catch a glimpse of the outside through the crack.

Unfortunately, the doors had been specially designed and wouldn’t leave a gap wide enough for that.

Just as Chen Miemie was feeling disappointed and preparing to return to his seat, the quill in his pocket brushed against the vehicle’s door-opening sensor.

The doors opened.

Chen Miemie quickly took the opportunity to look outside.

A gigantic banyan tree appeared in his field of vision.

“Excellent. My precious banyan tree is beautiful.” He was completely satisfied.

In the seats at the rear of the bus, Chen Miemie asked in confusion, “Huh? The buses in the Sealed Book Museum open their doors even when no one’s getting on or off?”

“Usually they don’t,” Yi Zhu replied casually. “Apart from the sensor by the door, the driver can control it too. Maybe the driver pressed the wrong button.”

Before long, Yi Zhu brought Chen Miemie to Fairy Tale Road.

The three of them began searching for Number 19, Fairy Tale Road.

Chen Miemie watched as the three of them ran around like headless flies, searching back and forth and asking everyone they could find. He was speechless.

“Hey, hey, hey! Between Number 17, Fairy Tale Road—the Old Man Yu’s shop—and the wall, there’s such a huge gap, and there’s even light shining from inside. You can clearly see it, so why don’t you squeeze in and take a look? What a bunch of idiots.” He completely forgot that he was one of the three idiots himself.

The three of them searched for a full hour and were even on the verge of giving up.

Chen Miemie had been sitting nearby, counting ants on the ground for half the day. He finally couldn’t stand it anymore.

When he saw Chen Miemie return to the vicinity of the Heart’s Fissure and look around once again, Chen Miemie went over to him and used the quill to laboriously move a small stone beneath his feet.

“Adjust the angle. Yes, just like that.” Moving such a tiny stone left Chen Miemie utterly exhausted.

Chen Miemie was distracted for a moment and tripped over the stone beneath his foot. His whole body lurched to the side. To avoid the humiliating memory of taking a pratfall on level ground, he followed his momentum and charged two steps diagonally forward.

That burst of momentum carried him into the gap between the edge of Number 17, Fairy Tale Road, and the wall beside it.

“Hm? This feeling… Something’s not right. There’s a mysterious aura here.” Chen Miemie turned his body slightly and squeezed through the gap.

Chen Miemie was rather pleased with himself. “I really am a little genius. I’ll call this trick ‘Throwing a Stone to Show the Way.’”

Chen Miemie did not follow him into the shop. Instead, he stayed by the entrance to the Heart’s Fissure.

He was lying in wait.

If nothing unexpected happened, the shop’s first customer would arrive very soon.

Sure enough, Yi Zhu found his way over.

Seeing this same-brand idiot—Chen Miemie once again gently shifted the small stone.

The story had begun moving along its proper course.

Chen Miemie had nothing to do inside the shop.

The conversation between Chen Miemie and Yi Zhu was something he had already experienced, and he remembered most of what had been said.

After Yi Zhu left, the anomalies within Chen Miemie emerged one after another. They began dividing up the space inside the shop and held a meeting to discuss matters.

Chen Miemie felt somewhat bored. He took out the quill and began examining the artifact that had come in handy so frequently during this brief period.

“Huh? Why does the light on the pen seem a little dimmer? And a few of the feathers are slightly bent?” Chen Miemie took this discovery very seriously. “Could it be because I used it to alter the story world?”

No one could tell Chen Miemie the answer, so he could only assume the worst.

“Looks like this quill has a limited number of uses. I can only save it for critical moments.”