Followed by a sudden palpitation, Lin Sanjiu cracked her eyelids open and drew in a harsh breath. She was woken up by a growing fear of oversleeping. After she fell into a slumber, Mrs. Manas had been assaulting her with waves of warning to wake her up. It was not a pleasant experience, but it was extremely effective.
For a person who had not slept for several days, a 30-minute nap could do nothing but worsen her condition. Her brain hurt as if someone was hammering her head and she felt woozy. Every time she blinked her eyes, it was a torturous process as her eyelids grazed her eyeballs.
The pocket dimension remained quiet. It seemed that it did not care if she was sleeping or not.
“Look for the exit, huh…” She dragged herself up from the ground and took in her surroundings. The ruin was large. It was at least a hundred, no, maybe a thousand square meters wide. She could not tell.
Collecting all the grass that she makeshift as her bed, she hurled them out of the concrete slab. After that, she began taking in her surroundings. The slab looked as if it had been gnawed on by some beasts. All four edges were uneven as they vanished into the patches of long grass that grew around them. She dusted herself and called for a bottle of water. She gulped half of it down and used the remaining to wash her face.
Then, with a long sigh, she began speaking. Her head became more clear and her thoughts more focused.
“This is a ruin and I can’t see any doors around. I suppose the pocket dimension is talking about the door of this building before it’s destroyed. But how? How am I supposed to find the door without any clues?”
What worsened the situation was that she had lost her [Battle Item]. She found several suitable Special Items from the [Notebook] that could be helpful for her current situation, but without her [Battle Item], she could not do anything.
Suddenly, a certain Special Item flashed across her mind and her eyes glowed.
“Hold on! Why didn’t I think of that? That might do the trick.”
“What’s your idea?” Mrs. Manas asked, sounding a little relieved.
“I’m not sure if it will work out or not. Let me try it out first. Hopefully, it will work.”
Using the remaining broken walls as her landmark, she identified the length of the locked room. After all, judging from the location of broken walls, the concrete slab looked like a rectangle.
Trailing along the length, she walked away from the concrete slab. She poked around in the tall grass and looked back and forth.
If she went too far into the tall grass, the pocket dimension would pull her back to the concrete slab. To prevent that from happening, Lin Sanjiu had to turn her head back to check the distance between her and the concrete slab from time to time to make sure that she did not go beyond the boundary.
When her feet kicked something hard, her eyes shone.
Crouching down, she pushed some of the grass aside to reveal a small patch of concrete slab underneath. There were piles of gravel and whatnot around it, and its edges had turned yellow over a long period of time.
I knew it!” Lin Sanjiu let out her first grin of the day. “I knew there must be more. The locked room is much larger than I thought.”
After being exposed to the wind and the rain for such a long time, part of the locked room had eroded far beyond recognition. Nature had reclaimed some part of the buildings and grass flourished, growing out here and there and blocking some of the concrete slabs from sight.
‘I think this should be enough…’
She did not know if this would work or not, but she had to try it out nonetheless. She called out a card and examined it meticulously. After all, this was her first time using this new Special Item.
[The Power of Word Picture]
This Special Item is born from an author’s confidence. The following is the compiled record of the conversation of him and his friend that night.
“This is so annoying,” author A said grumpily, “People nowadays are growing more and more impulsive and adrift, of course, me included. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The main thing is that most of the readers drop a certain novel if the opening of the story doesn’t catch their attention. If I put more effort into describing the surroundings, weather, or the feelings of the main character, the readers will accuse me of lacking concrete ideas.”
After that, he emptied a can of beer in a gulp. His face turned rosy and he looked just like an unlucky middle-aged man who had not succeeded in his career.
“Look at this sentence,” author A pointed out, “How can you picture the character’s image if I hadn’t described his appearance? How can you have an immersive sense of reality if I omitted all the descriptions of the details of the environment? The devil is in the details. I can’t just throw aside all my hard work and just draft out whatever the reader likes…Hold on a second, do you really think I look like an unsuccessful middle-aged man?”
After they discussed their career, ages, and receding hairline problems, author A began making a fuss again.
“Three.” For some reason, there was a gleeful grin on his face. “It only takes three or more details to give the reader a sense of reality. For example, the sofa you are sitting right now has a very thin cushion and you can feel the wood touching your skin. It is wrapped in a mottled green chenille fabric, and there is a layer of cat fur on top. Like the room, the sofa gives off a musty smell. See? Very realistic, right?”
Perhaps he should change his sofa. But on second thought, a poor writer like him might be too broke to change his furniture.
“I really hope that everyone can realize the power of word picture.” Author A sighed deeply and ended the conversation.
As its name suggests, this Special Item can show you the power of description. Description besets detail, and detail creates reality. When you are describing the weather, a person, or an object, throw in more or change some details. The more details you add in or change, the likelier it is to change something in the direction you want.
Since she had never used this Special Item before, Lin Sanjiu decided to try it on herself first.
“Erm…my boots,” she said as she looked downward at her feet, “They are black and made of leather. They are tough and pliable, but they are old. The back of the boots have turned white and the shoelaces are now gray instead of black.”
She should change to a new pair of shoes.
‘What details should I add next?’
“On the left side of the boot, there is a depiction of a starfish in yellow. It was sewn by using the same colored thread. The thread is very thin and hard to see…” As she spoke, she raised her left foot and looked.
“Huh?” Even though she had expected it, she was still a little surprised. “This is so ugly…”
“Are you through yet? Can we get down to real business now?” Mrs. Manas urged.
Lin Sanjiu pushed the grass aside with her feet. Standing next to the smaller sized concrete slab, she studied at the locked room and began gauging the distance.
“The floor of this room is concrete,” she began describing by using the locked room as her example. In order to return the entire building as close as to its original state, she chose several details that were less affected by the erosion of time. “The floor is flat and there are different grays. Some of the grays are deeper while the others are lighter. On the side of the building is a wall. It’s painted in white…”
Here was where the real challenge came.
“The concrete floor spreads all the way until the door…” Gripping the [Power of Word Picture] that looked like a pen tightly, Lin Sanjiu prayed that her plan would succeed. “The floor covers the entire building. There are cracks here and there due to the expansion…”
She waited for a while, yet nothing changed.
She then looked at the starfish on her left boot and frowned. She decided to wait for a longer while. However, the concrete slab did not spread out as she expected. Everything remained the same as it was.
“Maybe it is because of the door,” Mrs. Manas suggested, “Since you don’t know where the door is, the detail can’t be established.”
Sure enough, the pocket dimension was not as easy as she thought.
Be that as it may, Lin Sanjiu was just testing it out, so she was not really disappointed. She stepped on the smaller sized concrete slab and said, “If that is the case, then the floor spreads until here.”
Before her voice died away, the concrete slab suddenly began to radiate out as if it came alive. It crawled forward and connected with other concrete slabs that scattered around, including the one beneath her feet. The soil, grass, and roots were pressed underneath, and soon enough, a smooth cement floor was formed, shimmering under the sun.
The concrete slab stopped spreading forward after it reached her feet. She looked down and saw that the edge was still full of bumps and hollows. Apparently, it did not spread to the other side of the room.
“If I can find out more clues,” said Lin Sanjiu, beaming brightly, “Then, I can restore the entire room!”
