Chapter 84: Elegy in the Ashes to Find the True Source

"Stop!" Wei Qing screamed and tried to stop him, but it was too late. Dai Shiya's hand had already touched the flames, and a sharp burning pain instantly spread throughout her body. She gritted her teeth and pulled the document out of the fire.

"Are you crazy?!" Wei Qing rushed forward, grabbed Dai Shiya's burned hand, and anxiously checked the injury, "Hurry up and think of a way to put out the fire!"

Dai Shiya was in so much pain that she broke out in a cold sweat, but she didn't care about that. She stared at the document she had saved. A corner of the document had been burned, but most of the content was still intact.

"Water! Find water quickly!" Dai Shiya urged, enduring the pain.

Wei Qing finally reacted and looked around in a hurry, hoping to find some water. However, in this room, apart from the cold metal and the instruments flashing with strange light, there was no sign of a drop of water.

"No water...wait, what is that?" Wei Qing suddenly noticed a red device in the corner of the room. It was shaped a bit like a fire extinguisher, but it was covered with various buttons and indicator lights and looked very complicated.

"It might be a fire extinguishing device. Let's see how to use it!" Dai Shiya also saw the device and a glimmer of hope ignited.

Wei Qing walked quickly to the device and carefully examined the buttons and logos on it. However, these logos were all strange symbols, and she didn't recognize any of them.

"What the hell is this thing..." Wei Qing frowned, extremely anxious, her fingers hesitating on the button, not daring to try it easily.

"Hurry up! It will be too late if you delay any longer!" Dai Shiya's tone was filled with despair, because the flames from the document in her hand were rising again...

Dai Shiya watched the flames licking greedily along the edge of the paper, devouring the precious words, and she was extremely anxious. She didn't care about her burned hands, and randomly grabbed things around her to try to put out the flames. She first tore off her expensive silk scarf and covered the burning documents with force, but the silk material actually fueled the fire, and the flames jumped more arrogantly.

"No! This won't work!" Dai Shiya threw the scarf aside in panic. The scarf instantly turned into a fireball and fell to the floor with a sizzling sound. She grabbed the metal ornaments on the table and smashed them hard on the burning part, but only smashed the documents into pieces. The flames still burned stubbornly. The thick smoke choked her and made her cough continuously. Her eyes were blurred.

"Calm down! Shiya, calm down!" Wei Qing fiddled with the fire extinguisher anxiously while reminding Dai Shiya loudly. She knew that panicking at this moment would only make the situation worse. The symbols on the device were like some kind of ancient text, complex and unfamiliar. She tried to press the button according to a certain pattern, but only heard a shrill alarm and the indicator light on the device flashed even more crazily.

"Damn it!" Wei Qing pounded the device hard, feeling annoyed. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. Time passed by, and the fire on the document had spread to most of it, and was about to engulf the entire document. She carefully observed the symbols again, trying to find some clues.

"What kind of text is this? I've never seen it before..." Wei Qing muttered to herself, her fingers gently running over the symbols. Suddenly, her eyes stopped on a symbol that looked like "water".

"Water? Could it be..." A bold idea flashed through her mind. She quickly pressed the button with the "water" symbol, and then pressed a symbol next to it that looked like "start".

The device made a slight buzzing sound, but there was no response. Wei Qing's heart sank. Could she have guessed wrong? She leaned against the device dejectedly, feeling her hope fading bit by bit.

"Shiya, I..." Wei Qing looked at Dai Shiya weakly, but saw a scene that horrified her.

Dai Shiya had completely lost her mind at this moment. She desperately reached out to the burning document, trying to pull out the remaining part directly from the flames. The flames greedily licked her fingers, and the severe pain made her scream, but she seemed not to feel it, and her eyes were full of crazy persistence.

"No!" Wei Qing screamed in fear, trying to rush over to stop Dai Shiya, but it was too late. The flames instantly surrounded Dai Shiya's hands, spreading up along her arms, and she seemed to be in a sea of fire.

"Ah——" Dai Shiya let out a shrill scream...

Wei Qing stretched out her hand tremblingly, but she didn't dare to touch the sea of fire. She could only watch helplessly... "Shi Ya..."

"Ah——" Dai Shiya screamed shrilly, the flames greedily licked her arm, the severe pain almost made her faint. But she had only one thought in her mind: the document! The document might hide the truth about the book, and it was her only hope! She gritted her teeth, endured the piercing pain, and used all her strength to push her arm into the sea of fire, her fingertips touching a corner of the paper that had not been completely devoured.

"Shiya! Stop!" Wei Qing's voice seemed to come from far away, but she could no longer listen to any dissuasion. Despair and obsession occupied her whole mind. Just as she was about to touch the file, a huge force pulled her back violently. She fell heavily to the ground, and a deafening roar came to her ears.

The choking white powder filled the room. Dai Shiya coughed violently, and tears blurred her vision. When she opened her eyes, she found that she was tightly held in Wei Qing's arms. The original burning flames had disappeared, leaving only black ashes and choking smoke on the ground.

"You're crazy! You're trying to kill yourself!" Wei Qing's voice was tearful. She hugged Dai Shiya tightly, as if she wanted to rub her into her body.

Dai Shiya leaned weakly on Wei Qing's shoulder, trembling with pain and fear of survival. She raised her head and looked at the rescued document, which was now incomplete, with most of the content burned, leaving only the edges still vaguely discernible.

"Hurry... take a look..." Dai Shiya used all her strength to utter these two words. Wei Qing didn't bother to blame her. She carefully spread the document on the ground and carefully identified the remaining words on it.

"'...system...energy fluctuations...shuttle...'" Wei Qing recited intermittently. These words were scattered and illogical, but they were like a flash of lightning that split the fog in front of Dai Shiya's eyes.

"Could this be the reason why I traveled through the book?" Dai Shiya murmured to herself, with an inexplicable excitement and fear intertwined in her heart. She struggled to stand up, wanting to see more clearly, and at this moment, the whole room suddenly shook violently, and the crystal chandelier above her head was shaky, making a grinding sound that made her teeth ache.

"What's going on?" Wei Qing raised her head in horror, only to see shocking cracks appearing on the ceiling, as if something was about to break out of the ground.

It's too late! Dai Shiya's heart sank. She grabbed Wei Qing's hand, pointed at the remaining words on the document, and said hurriedly: "We... must hurry..."

Before she could finish, the whole room shook violently as if the world was spinning...