QT: Don't fall in love with the Male Lead

Chapter 186: Don't misuse library books

Xi Zirui looks up at the enormous shelves in the cavernous library with sinking feeling. It's not only the dizzying height of the shelves but also the multiple rows of them giving him vertigo.

How is he supposed to find Han Yu's book in the middle of all this? He could search for an eternity and not even come close.

When he came here in the past he just grabbed a book from the lower shelves at random and read it on the floor, Su Xueyi lying on his stomach next to him, peering over his shoulder at the yellowed pages or narrow bamboo strips, depending on whether the book was bound or a bamboo scroll.

Xi Zirui remembers he had fun mocking the petty human concerns of the people he read about. Everything about them seemed so small to him, so beneath him.

He remembers reading about a man whose biggest ambition in life was learning how to read and write.

In his first lifetime he was a poor peasant, so that was impossible for him. And yet the man loved stories, so he would save all his money to go to the local teahouse and listen to the storytellers there as they either shared word of mouth tales from the big cities, or read the latest novel making the hearts of the society ladies and gentleman in the capital flutter.

The man felt he had many stories in him too, but his words felt too crude and simple to convey them. 

He never learned how to read and write in that first life. Working on his family's small plot of land and making money to feed everyone was the most important thing. Eventually, he got married and had children, and managed to invest some money into a few shops in his village.

He did his best for his family, and lived a quiet existence, but he never did learn how to read and write. By the time his life was comfortable enough for it he was too old, and his brain too slow.

In his next life, because he accumulated several merits in his past one, he reincarnated as a human again. His family was still simple, but they lived in a more affluent city with many opportunities. The man's biggest wish was still learning how to read and write, but this time around his parents managed to send him to school.

His studies went well, and he was often praised by his teachers, so naturally his parent's expectations grew. They wanted him to take the civil servant exam, and become a well respected public official.

The man's biggest wish from his previous life was fulfilled in the next one, but then he became obsessed with all the stories inside of him that he hadn't managed to tell. Now he also couldn't tell them, but for different reasons: his parents lifelong discouragement and insistence in him to focus on a practical career path meant he almost never could practice his fiction writing, and once he started working for the yamen he was too busy for it.

Once again he died without fulfilling his biggest dream. His material conditions were much improved, and he enjoyed a much more relaxed way of life, but when he died he was just as frustrated as in his previous existence.

And on and on it went, until the last page, describing a salaryman trying to make it in the cutthroat investment business while leaving his big dream of being a video game designer in the back burner.

Until his most recent incarnation, the man had never managed to tell all the stories inside him, regardless of the medium.

When he first read the book of his life, Xi Zirui couldn't get over how small the man's dreams were. The dust of the mortal world really was beyond his comprehension.

How could reading and writing, telling stories, ever compare to understanding all the mysteries of the universe, with being in tune with all of existence, past, present and future?

The man's existence was so small compared to Xi Zirui's that he could only laugh at it.

He's not laughing now.

He understands with vivid clarity what it feels to have a small "human" desire, and how crushing it is for it to be constantly out of reach.

Xi Zirui stands in the entrance of the library and looks out at the rows upon rows of shelves, and steels his mind to search anyway.

He has four days to find Han Yu's book, it will have to be enough.

---

Xi Zirui has already gone through several books with no success when he hears footsteps bellow him. He jumps down form the upper levels of one the shelves, and glides down to the floor, landing in front of Ji Limei, who looks up at him with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, looking up at him with a suspicious frown.

"Gardening," Xi Zirui, deadpans. "What does it look like? I'm looking for a book."

"But why?" Ji Limei insists.

"For the same reason as you, I assume." 

"I'm helping senior Senior Rain God of the North with his prayers, so I might better perform my duties when I am named the Rain Goddess for the Southern regions," she preens a little, as if this is already a fact and not something which is still up for debate.

In the past maybe Xi Zirui would feel needled in his sister's behalf, but now he just feels sad for Bai Mi and Ji Limei.

Their paths run parallel in everything, fated only in that they shall never meet.

His and Han Yu do too, but for different reasons. Humans have very short lifetimes, and then they reincarnate. In theory gods live for eternity until they grow tired of all that living and decide to die, or are killed, but for gods there is no reincarnation -- they have already reached enlightenment.

Fate wouldn't bind together a butterfly and a tiger, for that same reason, it doesn't bind gods and humans.

"You're acting weird, your sister was just complaining about it," Ji Limei says, and then smiles sweetly, "maybe you're finally experiencing that long awaited qi-deviation."

He glares at her. 

In each world there was always something about Ji Limei's sweetness that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Now he remembers that her sweet, soft exterior hides a ruthless core.

In that regard, she's Bai Mi's opposite, who looks prickly on the outside and unapproachable but is actually kind and generous with those she loves.

"You spend a lot of time here, don't you?" Xi Zirui asks.

She nods. "I help the other gods with their prayers. Can't go going around answering every human's prayers if they don't deserve it." She taps the spine of a book next to her. "We check first."

See, Xi Zirui didn't know that, although someone must have told him at some point.

He never much cared for what his responsibilities would be once he was named god of something. He could never see that far ahead, but now he's being sent to the human realm on his first heavenly tribulation, and he needs a way to ensure he reaches Han Yu.

But Ji Limei's words give him hope, if she can find information about the humans who pray to the other gods, it means there's a way to find someone in specific.

"I need you to help me find someone," he tells her, looking expectantly into her narrowed eyes.

"Why would I help you? You painted my peacocks, you're constantly helping your sister in her childish pranks." She crosses the distance between them, her hands on her hips. "Give me one good reason why I should."

"I'll tell Bai Mi to lay off you," he says, knowing by the disdainful curl of her lips that that's not going to be enough.

"That's not going to be enough."

Xi Zirui lets out a frustrated groan. "Just tell me what you want."

She perks up at that, her face softening into the mask of sweetness she wears so well. Xi Zirui thinks he can almost see the glint of sharp shark teeth in her coy little smile, but it's just a trick of the light. 

"You'll have to do something for me," she says, singsong. "Your sister won't like it."

She'll get over it. Xi Zirui says yes.

---

According to Ji Limei the books are organized by the year in which the person's first incarnation began. People reincarnate constantly, but each time the population grows, outnumbering the previous generations, brand new existences start. And so on and so forth.

The problem is, Xi Zirui has no idea where Han Yu came from, whether he's a new soul or an old one.

"You have a name, that's something, the problem is that when a person prays to a god, a record of it is kept in our archives, with all their information laid out." She pauses. "Do you know if this Han Yu was the praying kind?"

How is Xi Zirui supposed to know tha-

A sudden flicker of realization lights the fire behind his eyes. 

For him. Han Yu must have prayed for him. It's insane, because none of that has happened yet, supposedly, but Xi Zirui just has a feeling it might work.

"Can you access the record of prayers by subject of the prayer?"

Puzzled, Ji Limei nods.

"Then, can you search for my name?"